Cashless gaming machines offer many advantages, and are accordingly attractive to both casinos and players. The term “casino” as used herein relates not only to conventional, large casinos, but to any business establishment where one or more gaming machines are present for commercial playing.
As taught for example in Franchi U.S. Pat. No. 5,770,533, a casino operating system may provide cashless gaming in which the respective player positions are equipped with a control panel including a card reader into which a credit card is inserted. However, there is a historical problem associated with inserting cards into gaming machines. Frequently, the players forget their cards and leave them behind in the gaming machine card readers.